Woodworking blog entries tagged with 'cleanup'

With the behemoth out of the corner, the bulk of the demolition was done. I still had to take down the cabinets, but I decided to go through the junk in the garage first to clear out some space. I should have done this a week or two ago when I piled it all up in one spot, because now I was effectively undoing all that work. Oh well.
I sorted everything into three piles: my stuff, my wife’s stuff, and garbage. The garbage piled turned out to be the biggest of the bunch. We appare...

Well despite the weeks best efforts to sideline me on my task of cleaning up my workshop, I got it into some semblance of order. It is not quite where I want it to be yet, but it is a good start. I promised before and after photographs so here goes, I am starting with the after and then the before, I just hope that you don’t kick me off of the site once you see how bad I let my shop get.
And Now For The Before Pictures
Warning the photographs you are about to s...

Just before starting the new job, I decided to clean up one little area in front of my garage and log racks. I used some 2×4s from that Mexican restaurant that closed down, and pine slats from crates from a restaurant next door to that which was receiving kitchen appliance deliveries at the time (both scores – junky as they may be – here). The wheels were rescued from the simple 2×4 hand truck I made awhile ago, which broke (last 2 pics) from dragging too many huge logs ...

I have redesigned this thing several times, waaay overdesigned it in SketchUp while briefly mad with visions of increasingly elaborate designs in even the most utilitarian of shop storage solutions, and tried to build it 3 times previously, giving up nearly immediately each time when things failed to work out. I’ve switched between construction grade ply and premium baltic birch ply. I’ve failed to account for kerf and cut things undersized, and failed to check ply for square befo...

So over the weekend I stopped by the individual who sold me the dust collector. For another $20 I got 30 foot of 4” hose and some connectors. I then went from there to the Woodcraft store and purchased a cyclone separator lid and some other fittings to adapt to the 2 1/2 ports on the Shopsmith and called it a day. I know when it’s more time/money efficient to just purchase something rather than jumping through the hoops. $25 got me into protecting the impeller blades on the dus...

When last we met, the level of clutter in my basement shop area had hindered my desire to be there. But a recent disaster quickly disposed of the clutter. My shop space is cleaner and more comfortable than it ever was, and the clutter is GONE!
You can see more pictures of the newly cleared shop space in my Workshop section here at LumberJocks. It’s good to be back.

Cleaning is a little like dieting: you get great progress at the beginning and the result is easy to see. I’ve been very consistent about the workshop cleanup over the last three weeks: Tuesday nights are strictly reserved for dealing with trash and clutter; Thursday nights I get to do something a little more fun, like setting up and tuning the Radial Arm Saw or clearing the workbenches for use weekends allow for projects of any type (I’ve just been clearing little fix-it tasks in...